Puella Magi Riza Magica
by Sailor Tralfamadore
Summary: There's a particular reason that Riza Hawkeye is so driven to protecting Roy Mustang. It's about a promise she made in her youth - a promise she's unable to break, or else. Riza-centric Madoka AU of FMA Brotherhood. Beware, major spoilers for both! Pairings are inside, but note they are not the point of the story. Rating may change with later chapters.
1. Introduction: Sis puella magica!

_AN: As far as pairings go, I'm planning to have Royai, Havocai and Riza/Rebecca show up at different points in the story, but how you feel about these pairings doesn't necessarily indicate how you'll feel about this story. The focus here is on Riza and her character development above all, and it's also going to be fairly dark. So if you're looking some Royai fluffiness or smut, I'm sorry, but this isn't it! But hopefully you'll enjoy this story in spite of that._

* * *

Kyubey had never had a quicker response.

Even the dying girls usually hesitated, at least a little. Somehow, even when you literally have nothing left to lose, there's still that worry about what the "catch" will be - as the humans called it. (Kyubey didn't think he was deceiving anyone; humans just had funny ways of defining these words.) That it might make death worse than continuing to live. They ultimately agreed, of course, but there was always that hesitation.

But Riza Hawkeye didn't hesitate. She knew what she wanted, and she knew she would do anything to get it. There was determination in her eyes, as she was slinging her gun over her shoulder, on her way to catch the next train to Central to report for cadet school.

"There's another way you could protect him, you know."

Riza spun around, her voice sharp. "What? Who? Who are you?" She breathed.

"What do you want? What do you know?"

Kyubey slunk out of the darkness and introduced himself. He continued, "And I know what you want, Riza. You don't even have to talk, I can hear the words banging around your head. You're very special; you have great magical potential. It's a wonder you never followed your father into alchemy."

_I don't want to be like him_, she thought. _Not at all. I don't like what he does. Ever since the...I don't like what he does._

"I know what you don't want to tell me, Riza," Kyubey continued. Her eyes got big. The cat...weasel...thing didn't even have a mouth, and yet she could hear it clear as day. Who else could hear? "Don't worry, nobody's listening. Only potential magical girls can hear me."

_Magical girls?_

"That's right," Kyubey said. "What I can give you, is far more powerful than any alchemy. If you hunt witches for me, rid the world of their despair, I will grant you whatever wish you want. No equivalent exchange. Nothing like what the alchemists talk about. No limits, anything you want."

_Then do it_, she said. _I'll do whatever you want. I wish...I wish what you said. I want to protect him. More than anything. The one person I've ever cared about. The one person who ever cared about me._

"Who?"

_Don't fool with me, if you can read my mind you know who. Roy Mustang. The alchemy student, training to work for the State. He's where I'm going, he's in the military, too. He's the reason I'm going._

_I wish...I wish to be able to protect him, so he doesn't die in that godforsaken war._

And suddenly, there was a huge, painful pressure in Riza's chest. It felt like the world was collapsing. And then...she felt so light, and there was a bright orange gem in her hands, the size of an egg.

"You use that to transform," Kyubey said. "There's a veteran magical girl you'll meet when you get to cadet school, and she'll show you everything you need to know about hunting witches."

The thing never changed its expression, but it would be smiling if it could, Riza could sense. "Thank you for contracting with me, Riza Hawkeye. And now...I believe you have a train to catch, don't you?"

Before she could bid it goodbye, Kyubey had left. She whirled around, still not sure if she hadn't hit her head in her rush to get to the station. But there was the soul gem...

* * *

It wouldn't be long before Riza Hawkeye learned that Kyubey hadn't been completely honest when he said _her_ "type of magic" didn't involve equivalent exchange.


	2. Chapter 1: Venari strigas

_AN: Yeah, Riza's attack powers are going to end up a lot like Mami's, so apologies if you were looking for something more creative. But really, what would magical girl Riza Hawkeye have if NOT something involving guns?_

_Also, trigger warning on this chapter for brief mention of suicide._

* * *

"So you've already made the contract, huh? Interesting. Kyubey usually has us watch over girls who are still trying to decide."

The veteran magical girl had long, curly brown hair, pulled into a ponytail. It cascaded down her shoulders and back in graceful waves. So different from Riza's short, boyish cut, the one she'd had as long as she could remember. Since she was a little girl and her mother was still alive, and would cut it for her.

"Yes, well, it was an easy decision for me," Riza said, as she lifted her sandwich to her mouth and took a bite. They were in the cafeteria at the Central Military Academy. Riza had wondered why this girl hadn't chosen a more private place, but Rebecca Catalina had informed her that the din of other students merrily chatting away would make it easier to mask the subject of her discourse.

She had been right; Rebecca clearly had experience with this.

"Why was it so easy?" Rebecca asked.

Riza said it solemnly, quickly, as though rehearsed. It was rehearsed, because it was always the same answer, and always would be.

"I have someone I need to protect."

Rebecca snorted.

"So you made the mistake everyone makes," she said, sighing into her coffee. "You made a wish for somebody else."

Riza was confused and shocked by the other girl's comment. "How could I not? If you're given limitless power, how could you not use it to make the world a better place, to help someone besides yourself?"

Rebecca's face softened. Riza clearly didn't know the whole truth.

"Well, of course, that's what most people want to do. But selfless wishes have a way of backfiring. Didn't Kyubey talk to you about this?"

Riza felt stupid all of a sudden. "No."

Maybe she should have asked some questions before she had accepted the contract so quickly. Hadn't Riza's parents taught her that? To be skeptical, that things are too good to be true?

But it's not like it would have changed what she wished for, anyway.

"You must have chosen very fast," Rebecca said.

"Yes."

"So who is this person you need to protect, anyway?"

Riza sighed. "He's a childhood friend. My father's alchemy student. I've known him for years, and he's the only person in the world I feel like I can trust."

Rebecca smiled. "Oooh, so you made your wish for a boy."

Riza smarted. "It's not quite like that. Okay..._maybe_ it is. But I didn't do it so he would love me. I believe in him, and want to help and protect him, even if he doesn't ever return my feelings. He's the reason I joined the military, in fact. So I can stay close to him and I can watch him."

Rebecca nodded as she listened to Riza. She liked this new girl; she seemed clever, and determined, and devoted.

But Rebecca Catalina had heard this story before.

"Listen, Riza," she said to the other girl, who perked up at the mention of her name. "I don't know much about this boy or about your relationship with him. But lots of magical girls make wishes for boys - or for girls, as you can guess - and tell themselves that they're doing it for selfless reasons. But deep down, they know what they really want is a return on their investments. Equivalent exchange, as the alchemists call it. They want to be loved in return for their sacrifice.

"I know it's kind of late in the game to be telling you this, but you should be sure this is what you want. Be sure that you are really are doing it for those reasons, and not just because you want him to notice you and love you for it."

Riza nodded. It was clear, now, that Rebecca wasn't just another gossip who assumed every close relationship a girl and a boy had was all about romance, who dismissed Riza's protectiveness over Roy Mustang based on that. She was speaking from prior experience here.

She wanted to know what Rebecca had seen that urged her to issue that warning.

She wanted to know how those other stories ended.

But also, she knew that she wasn't them.

"I am sure this is what I want. I am sure I'm not doing this for selfish reasons."

Rebecca smiled. Riza seemed pretty confident, and that was all she could count on. She wanted to believe in this girl, who was more serious and more driven than anyone she had met, magical girl or otherwise. Even in the military academy, full as it was with social climbers and future politicians and leaders.

Riza had a determination in her, a fire in her eyes, to a degree Rebecca had never seen before. She wanted to learn more about it.

So she decided to take Riza's word for it.

"I believe you. I trust you. Really, I do. You have something about you, that none of those girls had."

Riza gave a small smile, but the rest of her face didn't waver.

"So," Rebecca continued, poking her fork into her noodles - she had almost forgotten the food was there, she'd been so wrapped up in the conversation - "tell me more about this boy. And I'll tell you what you need to know to fight witches."

* * *

The girls were running through the streets of Central, and Rebecca was looking at the people around them. Finally, she found a sleepy-looking blond man in the uniform of an Amestris military officer. Riza ran her eyes over his uniform's shoulder. A First Lieutenant.

Rebecca urged Riza to be quiet, and when she was, they heard him droning on something disturbing:

"Wars, violence everywhere. The world in shambles. What's gotten into this country? I don't want to know. I'm going to leave. I'm going to die. I'm going to end it all."

Riza was horrified and about to say something, but Rebecca sensed it and put a hand over her mouth.

"He's not himself. Look at his neck." Riza did, and she saw a mysterious symbol there - almost like something in one of her father's alchemical arrays, if she squinted.

"That's a witch's kiss," Rebecca explained. "It means a witch took hold of him, that she's controlling his thoughts. The witches do nothing but spread despair and sadness. They're responsible for most suicides and other upsetting things in this world."

"So what do we do?" Riza said quietly, sensing from Rebecca's hushed tones that they weren't supposed to let this on to the man or anyone.

"We look for the grief seed," Rebecca said, "that will take us to the witch's barrier. There should be one nearby, I think, probably in an alley or other secluded place. Let's go - it's the only way to help this man."

The girls went racing past the alleys near them, with Rebecca looking in each of them long enough to identify whether it held a grief seed or not, but not long enough to arouse suspicion. It wasn't the best of neighborhoods, after all; someone might ask what two young Academy cadets were doing poking around in it.

Finally, she found the right one, and grabbed Riza's hand and led her down it at a brisk pace. The wall had a strange black orb sticking out of it.

"That's a grief seed," Rebecca said. "Every witch has a different one. When you defeat a witch, you use it to replenish your own soul gem - but not for too long, or that will cause the witch to regenerate." She paused, clearly thinking about something. "Magical girls can't share grief seeds, so I'll let you take this one."

Riza smiled and nodded. She could protest Rebecca's offer, but she felt too flattered by it to do so. "Okay."

Rebecca opened the witch's barrier.

Inside, it was beyond surreal - like a world that Riza couldn't imagine seeing outside of a dream. Bright colors but with flashes of darkness, demonic-looking bird-like creatures without eyes or mouths flying their way. Trees. Trees everywhere, but with sharp-edged leaves like none Riza had seen, with eerie slasher smiles on each leaf.

"They're always this weird," Rebecca explained, "and every single one is different. There's always a theme of some sort, like how this one seems to be a city park. I don't know why. But we should probably transform."

Riza looked at her blankly, not having had to do that before.

"Oh, silly me," Rebecca remembered, smiling. "You hold out your soul gem in front of you, and it should do the trick."

They both did that, and soon Riza looked down and noticed she was in a bright orange gown, with an empire waist and a skirt that barely skimmed her knees, and white gloves. She also had a pin in her short hair and, she noticed, an orange ring on her big toe, with a design on it like the array on her back.

How could Kyubey have seen? Riza wondered as she stared at it.

"That's where your soul gem is," Rebecca said, noting Riza's confusion. "when you're transformed. Now let's go. You should know how to attack on your own - it's instinctual, once you've transformed."

It was. Riza followed her instincts, telling her to clap her hands, and when she did so, there were bright orange pistols in each. Rebecca raised her arm straight up, and a navy blue axe - to match the navy blue of her uniform - appeared in it.

"Now that we're ready," Rebecca said, "let's go deeper into the lair and find the witch. You shoot at her, and if you lose the pistols, clap your hands again and you'll have more. And I'll hack at her. We have to kill her, so you can have your grief seed."

Riza nodded as they ran toward the center of the witch's barrier, swatting like mosquitoes at the tree and bird familiars that followed them along the way.

* * *

This witch, which looked to Riza like some kind of overgrown swamp plant, hadn't been a difficult one to take down. At least, that's what Rebecca had said. She had done most of the work, slashing at the witch with her axe, which made Riza feel bad about being the one to take the grief seed.

But Riza finished the witch off, shooting into its eyes, which seemed to do the trick. The witch fell and the grief seed fell with it. Rebecca had scooped it up and given it to Riza, and showed her how to replenish her soul gem.

Kyubey appeared out of nowhere. "You did a good job with that witch, you two," he said in his thought-speaking way. "I'll take this." The creature grabbed the depleted grief seed and ate it.

Weird, Riza thought. Everything about this keeps getting weirder.

She and Rebecca decided to grab dinner near the Central City Municipal Park, only a short walk from where the witch barrier had been. They managed to run into the same Lieutenant, who was now back to being full of life and no longer muttering about suicide. Riza felt relieved, like she'd done a good thing. It was the reason she'd joined the military, and yet she'd been given even more opportunities by becoming a magical girl. Opportunities the Amestris government could never give her on its own.

"So," Riza said when she and Rebecca sat down to their sandwiches, suddenly remembering something, "I told you my wish, could you tell me yours?"

"Oh yes, of course," Rebecca said, smiling back at Riza. They were already becoming friends, and she hoped they'd continue to be friends for a while as they took down the witches. "I had been orphaned shortly before Kyubey came to me. My father had died a few years before of a fever that ran through our town, and my mother - she was an officer in the military. A State Alchemist, in fact," Rebecca said, wiping at her mouth. "Lieutenant Colonel Catalina, the Sound Alchemist. But she had been killed in the line of duty in a border skirmish with Creta. My whole world had been turned upside down and I felt so terribly alone when Kyubey came to me."

This story had certainly altered the mood, and Riza suddenly felt both sad and uncomfortable. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.

Rebecca suddenly perked up. "Oh, don't be," she said. "After all, it's not a problem anymore. I used my wish to have them come back to life, and now both of my parents are alive and well and happy. I even have a new baby sister, who wouldn't be here if not for my wish!"

She'd said it so casually, as though she was recounting an award she'd been given in one of their trainings, but Riza hadn't missed the content of Rebecca's announcement. Bringing people back from the dead? Her mouth dropped open.

"But..." Riza stammed, "but... even the alchemists can't do that!"

She thought of the time, not long after Riza's mother had passed on, that Berthold Hawkeye had come back from the shed by their house, his mouth dripping blood. It wasn't long before he started taking students - before Roy. He tried to keep Riza from it, but she had slipped out later under cover of darkness and saw her father lay down a body that resembled, but was distinctly not Riza's mother's, before it flared up in an alchemical funeral pyre. Which her father had made without an array.

Though she wasn't an alchemist - her father tattooing her with his fire alchemy had turned Riza off the stuff permanently - she'd spent enough time reading the various books that lay around their house that she knew what she'd seen.

"Human transmutation, it's strictly forbidden! And it doesn't even work, when raising the dead! How..."

Rebecca put a finger to Riza's mouth, in a surprisingly intimate gesture that almost turned Riza's wide-eyed horror into a blush. And suddenly, the white rabbit-cat thing that called itself Kyubey jumped on to the table.

"But you're not alchemists. When I say I can grant you any wish, I do mean any. We're not bound by the laws of equivalent exchange, at least, not the way your silly alchemists are. You get your powers for our wish, but the wish doesn't have to be equal."

"And I know I'm not the first to make a wish like that, bringing someone back from the grave," Rebecca added.

Riza continued to gape at her new friend, and then turned her eyes to Kyubey, her expression never faltering. "So you're saying... we have powers beyond alchemy."

Growing up the daughter of a powerful alchemist, the kind continually courted (unsuccessfully) by the state, Riza had never thought anything more powerful than the arts that her father taught. But she had potential that could surpass that?

"You do," Kyubey suddenly spoke up again - well, as much as beaming words into their brains could count as "speaking." "At least, when you make your wish. And with your witch-killing abilities, you can destroy despair and defend justice in a way far beyond any alchemist's dreams."

"So, Cadet Hawkeye," the mysterious white rodent continued, "now that you know...do you think you used your wish well?"


End file.
